I

f you enjoyed Jimmy Buffett in concert at East Carolina, or Charlie Daniels, Cheap Trick, the Pointer Sisters, America, Styx, Molly Hatchett or any of the bands that played Minges in the late 1970s and early ’80s, you can thank Hugh Johnson ’81. During those years he chaired the SGA entertainment committee that picked the bands and provided the volunteer labor needed to stage the concerts. In the process Johnson, an English major from Dunn whose dad owned the local Radio Shack, learned a lot about the entertainment business.

Johnson had so much fun staging the campus concerts that after graduation he moved to the beach and tried making a living managing some local bands, with mixed success. He moved to Nashville in 1986 to take a job as a sound engineer at a recording studio and soon was moonlighting as a sound man at clubs on Music Row. That’s where, in 1989, he struck up a friendship with a young guitar player named Vince Gill. An emerging star in country music, Gill was launching a national tour and needed someone to produce the sound at the concerts. He offered Johnson the job.

'On the day of the show, I supervise all of the technical operations. The last thing I do is mix the front of house PA for the show. That’s my favorite part.'

Johnson has been on the road with Vince Gill ever since, through 10 hit albums, thousands of live concerts and, in 2007, Gill’s induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. For nearly 20 years now Johnson has been Gill’s production manager and “front of house” or FOH man, the person in charge of about everything associated with staging a major concert. And he’s still thrilled to be employed in the music business.

“My job starts about a month before the concert. I get information regarding the show from the booking agent or venue management. I get the name of a contact person and then make all the arrangements for the show, like whether we need a full band, a symphony or just a piano player. At that point I sit down with the person on the venue end who is responsible for having everything ready for us when we get there. That’s when I will make all the arrangements for the technical side of the performance. On the day of the show, I supervise all of the technical operations. The last thing I do is mix the front of house PA for the show. That’s my favorite part.”

It’s also the most important because the acoustics vary from one concert hall to the next but the quality of the sound—particularly Gill’s voice—should remain constant in the “front of the house” where the audience sits.

This fall’s tour is a bit different because Gill is performing exclusively acoustical, which requires less equipment and a smaller road crew. The tour got under way when Johnson staged Gill’s big Fourth of July concert at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, the traditional home of the Grand Ole Opry. Then he set out on a month of shows across the Northeast, to be followed by a West Coast swing.

Johnson’s life on tour rolls in a constant cycle: Having driven all night from the previous show, the tour bus hits town around 9 o’clock, accompanied by a semi loaded with equipment. Johnson directs a crew of eight unloading the trucks, setting up the sound system, microphones and mixers. Lunch offers an opportunity to check out the local attractions. Early afternoon is a rush because everything must be ready for a sound check by the band at 4 p.m. The show’s usually over around 10 o’clock and the crew spends an hour or two breaking down the equipment and loading everything back in the trucks, which immediately hit the road for the next town on the tour.

Sometimes Johnson flies but he usually lives and sleeps on the tour bus, which is a multimillion-dollar yacht on wheels that sleeps 12 comfortably. He works two weeks of concerts and then has two weeks off for rest or maybe relocating to another part of the country, where Gill will start another two weeks of shows.

Traditionally, Vince Gill’s fall tour culminates with three weeks of the popular Christmas shows he does with his wife, Amy Grant. After those shows, Johnson has a few months off.

Many in Gill’s inner circle have been with him for years. “We’re a family,” Johnson says. But sometimes the family doesn’t all stay together, as he recalls from the days before everyone carried cell phones. “One of the funniest things that ever happened to me was getting off the bus in Ogden, Utah, at a truck stop and getting separated from the group. I thought they had left me but they had just parked where I couldn’t see the bus. Then I spotted our merchandising people, who were traveling separately in a Suburban. I jumped in the Suburban with them and we ran down the highway looking for the tour bus. Eventually, we stopped at a truck stop in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and reached someone who had just talked with Vince and they were wondering what happened to me.”

How time flies, he says. “I really had no idea that this would lead me down the path I’m on now but it certainly did,” he muses. “I’m certainly grateful that I found a career in what I enjoyed doing the most in college. You know, in this business it’s unusual to work so long for one person so I’m really lucky to have worked all these years for someone who has a family mentality about the people around them.”